THIS WEEKEND Despite
losing much of its magical powers, Harry Potter
and the Prisoner of Azkaban still locked up the number one spot
fending off competition from three new films which targeted different audiences
all managing to post solid debuts. For the first time in box office history,
five films grossed over $20M each over the same weekend including newcomers
The Chronicles of Riddick from Universal,
Fox's Garfield: The Movie, and Paramount's
The Stepford Wives which all opened
within a $3M span of each other. The marketplace expanded to accommodate
a whole collection of promising titles showing remarkable breadth in the
top ten.

Crumbling 63% in its sophomore session, Azkaban
grossed a still-impressive $34.9M, according to final studio figures, and
boosted its ten-day tally to $158M. The fall was much worse than the franchise
has seen in the past. The first film in the Warner Bros. series, The
Sorcerer's Stone, dropped only 36% in its second weekend in
2001 as it was helped by the Thanksgiving holiday while The
Chamber of Secrets fell 52% a year later. Although Azkaban
posted the best opening of the three, its sophomore take quickly slipped
to the worst of the trio behind Stone's
$57.5M and Chamber's $42.2M.

After ten days of release, the new story in the Hogwarts saga stands
15% behind the same gross for Stone,
but 7% ahead of Chamber at the same
point. With so much upfront demand, little crossover to non-fans, and a
gargantuan amount of screens, Azkaban
has been soaking up most of its business in the early days. At its current
pace, look for the PG-rated film to reach the vicinity of $240-250M which
would put it behind the last two Potter
pics.

Overseas, Azkaban grossed $66.4M
from 40 countries on 9,900 screens this weekend including top spot debuts
in 16 new markets like Australia, Sweden, Denmark, and South Africa. The
international cume stands at $204.8M lifting the worldwide gross to a towering
$363M after only two weeks.

Universal led the charge among the weekend's new
releases with the sci-i actioner The Chronicles
of Riddick which opened to $24.3M from
2,757 theaters. Vin Dielsel's $100M-budgeted sequel to 2000's Pitch
Black averaged a muscular $8,810 per site
and played mostly to a young male audience. Studio exit polls showed that
58% of the audience was male and 52% was under 25 which was in line with
Universal's expectations. Long-term playability could be rocky for Riddick
as it is for most sci-fi sequels. Friday grosses represented an alarmingly
high 42% of the entire weekend take indicating that fans wanted to see
the PG-13 film right away leaving fewer fans left for the days and weeks
to follow.

Shrek 2 dropped to third place but
is still packing them in easing 39% to $23.3M. Enjoying the smallest decline
in the top ten, the DreamWorks sensation boosted its jaw-dropping cume
to $353.3M and set yet another milestone becoming the fastest film to reach
the $350M mark doing it in just 26 days. That beats Spider-Man's
old record by five full days. On Saturday, Shrek
2 surpassed last summer's Disney/Pixar smash Finding
Nemo to become the top-grossing animated film ever. The ogre
tale also smashed its way into the all-time top ten on the domestic blockbusters
list jumping up to number nine right above The
Two Towers ($340.7M including re-release).

Pouncing into the fourth slot was Fox's family comedy Garfield:
The Movie with $21.7M from 3,094 theaters. Averaging a solid
$7,022 per venue, the PG-rated pic features Bill Murray as the voice of
the popular feline comic strip character. The $50M production attracted
an audience that was 54% families and plait evenly between genders, according
to studio research. Despite Harry Potter
and Shrek 2 gobbling up nearly $60M
in business from similar audiences, Garfield still
managed to find its place and hopes to keep moving forward as more more
school children begin summer vacation with each passing day.

Nicole Kidman enjoyed her biggest opening ever for a lead role with
The Stepford Wives which bowed to $21.4M
taking fifth place. The Paramount release which co-stars Matthew Broderick,
Glenn Close, Bette Midler, and Christopher Walken averaged an obedient
$7,003 from 3,057 theaters. Directed by Frank Oz (Dirty
Rotten Scoundrels, In & Out),
Stepford connected mostly with an adult
female audience, as expected. Studio data revealed that an overwhelming
70% of the crowd was female and 60% was age 25 or older. Co-produced with
DreamWorks for $90M, the dark comedy stood out in a marketplace full of
kids movies and action pictures. Wives
will try to follow the pattern of other recent early summer films aimed
at adult women like Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya
Sisterhood and Kidman's own Moulin
Rouge which went on to gross more than four times their opening
weekend figures.

The global warming disaster pic The Day After
Tomorrow fell 48% to $14.5M in its third weekend. After 17 days,
the Fox hit has collected $153.1M. Off 43% in its third weekend was Buena
Vista's Kate Hudson comedy Raising Helen
with $3.7M for a total of $31.3M. Warner Bros. followed with Troy
which grossed $3.4M, down 43%, giving the Brad Ptt epic $125.6M domestically.
Internationally, the Wolfgang Petersen film is experiencing staying power
and grossed $16.6M from 59 markets boosting the overseas total to $293.3M
and the global haul to a massive $419M.

MGM/UA widened its indie religious satire Saved!
from 31 to 589 theaters across the country and hit the top ten with $2.5M.
Averaging a good, but not heavenly, $4,304 per location, the Mandy Moore-Jena
Malone pic has taken in $3.7M to date. The not-so-pious Mean
Girls rounded out the top ten with $1.5M, down 49%, for a total
to date of $81.3M.

With Shrek 2 looking to dominate
the summer landscape, DreamWorks got cracking on its next release by offering
sneak previews on Friday evening for the Tom Hanks-Steven Spielberg film
The Terminal. In 150 theaters, the
PG-13 film about an Eastern European immigrant stuck living in an airport
terminal after his country is overthrown generated 85% capacity with about
90% of the shows sold out, according to the studio. The audience was 56%
female and more than half were 25 or older. Younger moviegoers actually
liked the film better as the percentage of those polled which found the
film "excelent" or "very good" was over 90% for those
under 25 and in the 80s for those 25 and older. The
Terminal opens on Friday in about 2,700 theaters opposite the
comedy Dodgeball and the family adventure
Around the World in 80 Days.

Fox Searchlight generated a powerful debut for its new comedy Napoleon
Dynamite which grossed $116,666 from six theaters in New York
and Los Angeles. Averaging an explosive $19,444, the Jared Hess-directed
nerd story will expand into five more cities on Friday and will slowly
roll out throughout June and July giving summer moviegoers an alternative
to the mindless action extravaganzas.

Four films dropped out of the top ten over the weekend. The summer-launching
monster mash Van Helsing tumbled 51%
to $1.2M in its sixth scare to boost its cume to $117M. Universal's $160M
special effects-extravaganza should find its way to just under $120M domestically
- a bit underwhelming considering pre-release expectations. Overseas, the
Hugh Jackman film is also slowing rapidly and grossed $2M over the weekend
to boost the international cume to $141M putting worldwide at $257M. With
Japan as the only major market yet to open, the global gross for Van
Helsing will try to climb to $300M falling well short of the
$400M+ tallies collected by The Mummy
and The Mummy Returns, both of which
were also directed by Stephen Sommers and had smaller budgets.

MGM's airline comedy Soul Plane
plunged 66% to $933,068 this weekend putting the total at just $13M. Produced
for $17M, the Snoop Dogg flop should land with about $15M. Denzel Washington
saw his bodyguard pic Man on Fire drop
57% to $452,980 lifting the sum to $76.3M. The $70M Fox production should
conclude its mission with around $77M.

Indie sensation Super Size Me continued
to expand into new franchises and has grossed $7.5M to date on its way
to becoming the second highest-grossing documentary ever after Bowling
For Columbine. That is, until Michael Moore's followup Fahrenheit
9/11 arrives on June 25th which in a mere week could zoom right
to the top of that list.

The top ten films grossed $151.3M which was up 33% from last year when
Finding Nemo reclaimed the number one
spot with $28.4M; and even with 2002 when Scooby
Doo opened on top with $54.2M.

Compared to projections, The Chronicles of
Riddick opened a few notches below my $28M forecast while The
Stepford Wives was on target with my $22M prediction. Garfield
debuted better than my $17M projection.

Take this week's NEW Reader
Survey on whether Dodgeball or
The Terminal will open better next
weekend. For a review of Riddick visit
The Chief
Report.

Be sure to check back on Thursday
for a complete summary, including projections, for next weekend when The
Terminal, Dodgeball, and
Around the World in 80 Days all open.

This column is updated three times each week:
Thursday
(upcoming weekend's summary), Sunday
(post-weekend analysis with estimates), and Monday
night (actuals). Data source: Exhibitor
Relations, EDI. Opinions expressed
in this column are those solely of the author.

Last Updated : June
14, 2004 at 5:30PM EDT

Gitesh Pandya can be seen each Friday on "The
Biz" airing at 12:30pm ET on CNNfn.